Ocasio-Cortez, one of the youngest US representatives, congratulated women on International Women’s Day and suggested that accusations that she allowed her boyfriend to set up an email account on House servers and engaged in campaign finance violations were “fake ‘scandals’.”
Ocasio-Cortez is currently facing three complaints on the grounds of violating ethical and financial rules. The Coolidge Reagan Foundation, a nonprofit organization, filed an ethics complaint last week accusing Ocasio-Cortez of using House resources for personal use when she allowed her boyfriend to obtain a House.gov email address. The complaint also alleged that she obtained the email address by falsely listing him as a staff member. Ocasio-Cortez claimed at the time that it was perfectly normal for spouses of House members to have email addresses that would allow them access to the member’s calendar, yet made no comment regarding the claim that she had falsely designated her boyfriend as a staff member.
The second complaint came from the National Legal and Policy Center, filed with the FEC, suggesting an incestuous relationship between Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign and Justice Democrats — a PAC which at the time was controlled by the congresswoman and her chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti — in addition to possible campaign finance violations.
A third complaint was filed by The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust. The Trust accused Ocasio-Cortez of violating House ethics rules by including posts of official video footage from the House floor on her political Instagram account.
The FEC has not yet indicated whether or not the alleged campaign finance violations will be investigated.